John Kasich on Health Care

Give financial incentive for low cost & good outcomes

I would repeal ObamaCare. I would take some of the federal resources, combine it with the freed-up Medicaid program, which I would send back to the states, and cover the working poor. We are going to make payments to physicians and hospitals
who deliver healthcare with great quality at low prices. If you think about your own deductibles, they're going higher and higher. At some point, people can't afford it. Our plan will work. It uses the market.

Ohio expanded Medicaid but not for ObamaCare

KASICH: Our Medicaid programs [in Ohio] are coming in below cost estimates, and our program in the second year grew 2.5%. When we expand Medicaid and treat the mentally ill, they don't live under a bridge or in a prison, where they cost $22,500 a year.
When we take the drug addicted and we treat them, we stop the revolving door of people in and out of prisons and save $22,500 a year.

BUSH: I admire the fact that Governor Kasich is supporting spending more money on drug treatment and mental health.
I think that's a high priority, but expanding ObamaCare is what we're talking about, and ObamaCare's expansion, even though the federal government is paying for the great majority of it, is creating further debt on the backs of our children.

KASICH: When Jeb was governor, his first four years as governor, his Medicaid program grew twice as fast as mine. With ObamaCare, I've not only sued the administration, I did not set up an exchange. Jeb knows that I'm not for ObamaCare, never have been.

We save $22,500 a year by treating addicts & mentally ill

Q: You pushed Medicaid reform in your state over the rejections of many of the republicans.

KASICH: Our Medicaid programs are coming in below cost estimates, and our program in the second year grew 2.5 percent. When we expand Medicaid and treat the
mentally ill, they don't live under a bridge or in a prison, where they cost $22,500 a year. When we take the drug addicted and we treat them, we stop the revolving door of people in and out of prisons and ave $22,500 a year.

We reduced Medicaid funding by 7.5% with no benefit cuts

We would move the Medicare system from a 7 percent growth down to about a 5 percent growth.
And I have a whole series of ways to do that. In Ohio, we reduced Medicaid funding for the poor from 10 percent to 2.5 percent, didn't cut one benefit or didn't take anybody off the rolls.

Source: Fox Business/WSJ Second Tier debate
, Nov 10, 2015

Ohio took Medicaid from 10% to 2.5%

In my state, we took Medicaid, the hardest program to control, and we took it from a 10 percent growth rate to 2.5 percent without taking one person off the rolls or cutting one single benefit. We can take many of those same procedures,
we can apply it to Medicare. We can make a stronger program. But I agree with Jeb, you can't just do this by growing the economy. You can't grow your way out of demographics.

Expand Medicaid; everybody has a right to God-given purpose

Q: You chose to expand Medicaid in your state, unlike several other governors on this stage tonight. You defended your Medicaid expansion by invoking God, saying to skeptics that when they arrive in heaven, Saint Peter isn't going to ask them how small
they've kept government, but what they have done for the poor.

KASICH: First of all, President Reagan expanded Medicaid 3 or 4 times. Secondly, I had an opportunity to bring resources back to Ohio. And the working poor, instead of them having come
into the emergency rooms where it costs more, where they're sicker and we end up paying, we brought a program in here to make sure that people could get on their feet. And do you know what? Everybody has a right to their God-given purpose.
Our Medicaid is growing at one of the lowest rates in the country. And, finally, we went from $8 billion in the hole to $2 billion in the black. We've cut $5 billion in taxes and we've grown 350,000 jobs.

Opposes ObamaCare but not all public programs

Q: You pushed ObamaCare's expansion of Medicaid through in your state of Ohio. Why?

A: I'm opposed to ObamaCare and I've been clear on that. In addition to that, instead of locking people up in prison who have mental health [problems], we give them
treatment and keep them out and that saves us money. Instead of putting the drug addicted person back in prison and having them be released and back in prison, we treat them and we have a 10% recidivism rate. And for the working poor, instead of us all
paying uncompensated care when they go in there and they don't have insurance, they now have health care so they're not sicker and more expensive. Now, we not only save money by doing this, and morally, we're letting people get up on their feet and
have a better life. In regard to Medicaid, however, we bring our money back to treat people here in Ohio. I would [prefer to] block grant it, empowering states to deal with those who are sick and poor, so it's not a one-size-fits-all mentality.

Shift funding from nursing homes to home-based care

During Kasich's tenure as governor, there was his 2011 battle with Ohio's powerful nursing-home industry: Kasich wanted to shift funding toward home-based care; nursing homes were, understandably, displeased; the industry launched a
PR blitz against the governor, including a TV attack ad accusing him of literally pulling the plug on grandma and grandpa. "That commercial was seen as having crossed a line," says Kasich's chief health care adviser.
The governor refused to back down and eventually won the necessary votes in the Legislature. A decidedly un-conciliatory Kasich went on to veto subsequent bills by the
Legislature to aid the industry. "The governor," says an adviser, "reminded the nursing homes that they really shouldn't have gone on TV."

Accepted ObamaCare's Medicaid expansion statewide

Kasich has angered some conservative Republicans for his policies and his emphasis on compassion over ideological purity.
He has increased state spending for social programs and accepted an expansion of Medicaid in Ohio under the Affordable Care Act.

Expand Medicaid to 275,000 poor Ohioans, but not ObamaCare

Few have gone further than Mr. Kasich in critiquing his party's views on poverty programs, and last week he circumvented his own Republican legislature and its Tea Party wing by using a little-known state board to expand Medicaid to
275,000 poor Ohioans under President Obama's health care law.

In his three years as governor, he has expanded programs for the mentally ill, fought the nursing home lobby to bring down Medicaid costs

Yet, at the same time Ohio under
Mr. Kasich refused to run its own state insurance exchange as encouraged by the health care law, known as the Affordable Care Act. The governor said he did not believe that the law, which mandates that people buy insurance, will work.
To the contrary, he said, "It's going to throw people out of work and not control costs."

$776B tax cut plan helps people afford health care

Kasich was asked, “How could the government help with senior’s prescription costs?” Kasich gave the same answer he gives to almost every other question these days: Government can help by cutting taxes. More specifically, by using the post-deficit era’s
budget surpluses to slash federal income-tax rates 10% across the board -- a total of $776 billion in tax cuts over 10 years. Under the Kasich plan, an average family would save $840 a years in income taxes.

HR 4680, the Medicare Rx 2000 Act, would institute a new program to provide voluntary prescription drug coverage for Medicare beneficiaries through subsidies to private plans. The program would cost an estimated $40 billion over five years and would go into effect in fiscal 2003.

Voted YES on banning physician-assisted suicide.

Vote on HR 2260, the Pain Relief Promotion Act of 1999, would ban the use of drugs for physician-assisted suicide. The bill would not allow doctors to give lethal prescriptions to terminally ill patients, and instead promotes "palliative care," or aggressive pain relief techniques.

Voted YES on establishing tax-exempt Medical Savings Accounts.

The bill allows all taxpayers to create a tax-exempt account for paying medical expenses called a Medical Savings Account [MSA]. Also, the measure would allow the full cost of health care premiums to be taken as a tax deduction for the self-employed and taxpayers who are paying for their own insurance. The bill would also allow the establishment of "HealthMarts," regional groups of insurers, health care providers and employers who could work together to develop packages for uninsured employees. Another provision of the bill would establish "association health plan," in which organizations could combine resources to purchase health insurance at better rates than they could separately.

The Christian Coalition voter guide [is] one of the most powerful tools Christians have ever had to impact our society during elections. This simple tool has helped educate tens of millions of citizens across this nation as to where candidates for public office stand on key faith and family issues.

The CC survey summarizes candidate stances on the following topic: "Federal government run health care system"

The Christian Coalition voter guide [is] one of the most powerful tools Christians have ever had to impact our society during elections. This simple tool has helped educate tens of millions of citizens across this nation as to where candidates for public office stand on key faith and family issues.

Loosen "one-size-fits-all" approach to Medicaid.

Kasich signed Letter to Pres. Obama from 32 Governors

As Governors, we are writing to you regarding the excessive constraints placed on us by healthcare-related federal mandates. One of our biggest concerns continues to be the Maintenance of Effort (MOE) provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which prevent states from managing their Medicaid programs for their unique Medicaid populations. We ask for your immediate action to remove these MOE requirements so that states are once again granted the flexibility to control their program costs and make necessary budget decisions.

Every Governor, Republican and Democrat, will face unprecedented budget challenges in the coming months. Efforts to regulate state operations impose greater uncertainty on our budgets for oncoming years and create a perfect storm when coupled with the current state of the economy.

Health and education are the primary cost drivers for most state budgets. Medicaid enrollment is up. Revenues are down. States are unable to afford the current Medicaid program, yet our hands are tied by the MOE requirements. The effect of the federal requirements is unconscionable; the federal requirements force Governors to cut other critical state programs, such as education, in order to fund a "one-size-fits-all" approach to Medicaid. Again, we ask you to lift the MOE requirements so that states may make difficult budget decisions in ways that reflect the needs of their residents.